USNA Memories

Subscribe to Class of 1985 Website Updates

Enter your email address to subscribe to our class website and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 101 other subscribers

Email Address

And so it begins!!!

It was a great start with a pre-kickoff celebration at the Ram’s Head tavern. It was a great turnout. Boy did those sea stories start to flow. We are all getting warmed up and psyched for the rest of the weekend! No matter what the weather, this will be a reunion to remember!

85 at the Ram’s Head

Tilghman, Yetman, Phelps, and Vance

Andrea, Angela, and Ashley

Tomorrow the fun really starts.

Remember Rick Campbell is at the Mid Store tomorrow from 8-4 signing copies of his books. Every purchase means a donation to the class fund!

Reunion kick off party – Fado’s. Be there. Aloha!!

Share this:

Share this:

The first of many frequent updates on our plans and the weather. Please remember to bring rain gear, extra clothes (unless you don’t mind being wet), and most of all a positive attitude. We’ve been through blizzards and hurricanes before. Remember the winter of 1983? That blizzard cancelled the Valentine’s Day formal. Nonetheless, we made the best of it.

Share this:

For those of you interested in picking up Rick Campbell’s novels (Trident Deception and Empire Rising) and get the copies signed, here is his book signing schedule at the Mid Store:

Thursday – 8-4

Friday – 8-3

Saturday – 8-12

Stop by and say hello, bring your personal copies of the books and get them autographed! They are a fantastic read!

Remember, Rick is donating the royalties from books sold at the Mid Store this weekend and those bought by classmates at any time to our class fund to defray the reunion cost of our fallen classmates’ widows.

Please send me an email with the books you bought, where, and format. I’ll be keeping the tally and passing it on to RIck and Bob Smith.

Share this:

EMAIL Blast Sent 9/29/2015

Classmates,

We are now counting hours until our reunion and I want to pass along a few updates. I, unfortunately, can control most things with our reunion weekend except the weather. We are now watching and making plans to deal with the incoming weather that is being driven by tropical storm Joaquin. I ask all of you to WATCH THE FORECASTS up until you depart. Plan now to wear appropriate clothing and appropriate footwear for the tailgate and for your tours of the yard. It is fall football weather and we always took a chance of this and so now we are reacting to it. Bring umbrellas and rain proof jackets and patience as we do our best to mitigate this and weather proof our tailgate. I am adding tents and extra TV’s and straw. The good news, the food will still be great, the beer will always be cold and our great Navy Team plays better in water because that is what we do best at Navy (Deep Water Ops). Seriously, the large part of our weekend is under cover and we are working now to get even more of it under cover. Come ready to dodge the rain drops and I am betting I will sell out of my extra Class of ’85 Umbrellas that are for sale.

More good news:

One of our classmates – Rick Campbell – retired from the Navy and took up writing, signing a 2 book deal (which has been extended to a 4 book deal) with Macmillan / St. Martin’s Press for his novel The Trident Deception, which was hailed by Booklist as “The best submarine novel since Tom Clancy’s classic – The Hunt for Red October.” His first two books were Barnes & Noble Top-20 bestsellers and both are ranked in the Top-10 for submarine thrillers on Amazon out of 400+ submarine novels, based on customer reviews. He’ll be signing books at the Midshipmen store reunion weekend, and will donate all royalties from books sold at the Midshipmen Store or bought on-line from classmates to our class fund, to help defray the cost of paying for widowed spouses to attend the reunion. If you get a chance, stop by the Midshipmen Store to pick up a signed copy of either The Trident Deception or Empire Rising (or both!), or order on-line and send me an email, letting me know what format you bought (paperback, hardcover, eBook, or audiobook). This is a great way to help out a classmate, help cover the costs for widowed spouses, and you’ll end up with a great book or two. I’ve read his first book, and it was fantastic – you won’t be disappointed!

Also, we are putting together some really nice packages to raffle off for Charity this weekend. We are partnering with Luke’s Wings to support the “No Wounded Soldier Alone for Christmas” drive. I have obtained a few Army/Navy Tickets, we have a few extra special edition Woodford Reserve Bottles, I have some nice Class store items and I even have a package that is 4 hours of free shuttle service for a night out in Annapolis from Annapolis Bus Co. We will sell tickets at all events and at reunion registration so bring some extra cash and take a chance to win one of our fun raffle packages. (more…)

Share this:

I’ve converted the VHS videotapes of our commissioning week and graduation onto DVDs. If you’re interested in a copy, please let me know as I can bring DVDs down with me burn copies during the reunion.

Thanks!

Share this:

Passing on some gouge:

Air Force Game

There are still folks looking for Air Force tickets for Saturday. If you need to give up your tickets, please let send me your info (cell and email) and I will post it. It seemed to work well with the tickets that came available yesterday and were picked up by others. If there’s any comments on improving the process, please enter it in the Feedback Page.

Weather

The weather forecast is looking so-so for this weekend, so please come prepared as it is Reunion Dress with Rain Gear! Seriously, make sure that you’ve got some type of gear as no umbrellas are allowed in the stadium. Rain or Shine ’85 will have a FANTASTIC time!

Website Updates

If you have subscribed to the website updates and haven’t received any notifications, it should be resolved. You’ll get an email when a new post is added or updated not when a page is changed. I’ll keep that in consideration for triggering notifications.

I’ve added a couple of more pages: Class Giving and A Picture Gallery with some pictures pulled off SmugMug. Many of the pictures don’t have captions. If you know who is in them and when/where they were taken, please let me know and I’ll update that information in the gallery.

Any other information that comes along, I’ll post it so please keep checking back.

Share this:

Share this:

EMAIL Sent 9/24/2015

Class of ’85,

No surprise to everyone that we are only one week from the 30th Reunion and people are still signing up today. TOMORROWis the ABSOLUTElast day to register or sign up for the dinner or the tailgate. I have to have my final count to vendors after tomorrow. I cannot issue any more refunds after tomorrow as well, as we are locked into events and I have to pay the vendors on tomorrow’s final count. Hopefully everyone is ready to go and all that is left is to come safely to town and jump on board with the party in progress.

We are upgrading our USNA ’85 Photo Quiz site and Vic Otero is working our vendor to get not only our Firstie Pics up (they are already there) but to get a current photo alongside those photos. Here is what they asked me to send you:

Photo/File.Naming Convention; Trotta Andrew Andy USNA1985 If you are one of the 17 Simths, please be very specific; Smith Robert Bob 16th company USNA 1985. Since the app is for reunion preparation (designed to help you recognize people at the reunion), we are ONLY uploading current photos for those registered to attend the reunion. Please encourage other classmates to submit their current photos in advance. This will speed up the check-in process and give all classmates more time to review the photos. Vic Otero is in charge of this program, if you questions, PLEASE contract Vic Otero at: vic@otero-pearl.com or Brian at: brian@mrcaldwell.com. Good luck and enjoy this new site. WE ARE THE ONLY CLASS TO HAVE THIS….. once again, setting the bar high.

All that is left is to travel safe to Annapolis and enjoy a GREAT weekend. The long term forecast is out, looks like high 60’s and more sun than clouds, any rain ends on Thursday and we will be inside Fado’s. All weekend long we are raising money for Luke’s Wings Charity as well as our Class of ’85 “Taking care of our own” fund. We will use the money we make at this reunion for 5 years of class support and soon after the reunion will publish a full financial accounting of the reunion and our 5 year plan. I am going to start putting a greater emphasis on Class of ’85 USNA Support Fundraising going forward and expect to see more of this in the coming weekends. We have 20 President’s Circle Members and for 2016, I would LOVE to see 100 of us. I am the 20th President’s Circle Member as of today!! (This means your gave $2500 or had a an employer gift match that met $2500). Next year we will have the 31st Reunion at the President’s Circle Weekend in 2016. (For those of you not familiar, as a President’s Circle Member, you get an invite back for a special home football weekend. This year, it happens to be the same as our reunion). Stay tuned for Class Giving Efforts!

Okay Class of ’85, let’s have a great week and come “Home” to our 30th Reunion READY TO RUMBLE!! I have adjusted my efforts to make sure ALL events are 100% Class of ’85 Quality and am confident that our team and our vendors can deliver. We do not plan to accept walk ups, so if you are last minute after tomorrow, you NEED to call me in advance. Our final numbers will be in stone and only if I can last minute cancels can we accept walk ups. See you all in a few days and cannot wait. (If you want to add “free events”, even Thursday night, you do not need to contact me, just show up).

Regards, Your VERY PROUD Class President, Bob Smith

Share this:

Class of ’85 Quiz Site

Do you need a refresher on being able to match our young faces with names? We’ve got something for you – the Class of ’85 Quiz Site! Nothing like some flash cards and crash rate memorization for reunion preparation.

This is how this ’85 Photo Quiz site works. Go to this site:: ’85 Quiz Site (https://www.cibellc.com/ReunionFlashCards/USNA1985/).
Type in our user name: USNA1985 (Caps Sensitive) then the PW: BeatArmy! (one again, caps sensitive).
Now… try and name all of our classmates by looking at their pics on your first try. With any luck, you’ll remember your company mates! Let us know how you do. Enjoy and use this as a great tool to get ready for our reunion and putting a face with a name (We will have very nice name tags our reunion weekend FYI).

Share this:

Classmates,
I am sorry but I am running out of things to call these updates. First things first, USNAA has FINALLY reworked their web hosting platform and we are now at: http://1985.usnaclasses.net. We have moved on from .com and will hopefully soon have a redirect, but until we get that done, please re-bookmark the new web address. If anyone has issues or questions or suggestions surrounding our class website, PLEASE contact Angela Orlando at: aorlando1963@optonline.net. Soon I can update you to your face.

It has been a busy week for ’85 as we continue to support Navy Football and each other at our Home Game Tailgates. Navy had an awesome 42-21 victory this weekend over ECU and almost as important, Class of ’85 killed two kegs of Land Shark at our tailgate. We have made the move to our new Tailgate Set up and we will now provide cold beer to all who attend from our Stadium vendor. Moving ahead we will be setting up larger tents and eventually will purchase a larger tent and look to having a bigger bar set up and flat screen TV’s. It’s a process and I am working to get the best value and cherry pick what other classes are doing that seems “cool” or seems to work. Coming out of the 30th, we will build on this momentum to keep improving what we do. Thanks to those who continue to support us at all our Home Tailgates and I hope that those of you who do not live locally will make it a point to attend at least one home game and see how much fun we have. I will once again be organizing a Class of ’85 Army/Navy Indoor Tailgate up in Philadelphia and will start working that after our Reunion. (more…)

Share this:

We are now getting into striking range of our reunion, only 13 days and a wake up. For some of you that is only 2 or 3 more showers (you know who you guys are). As expected, the numbers are TOTALLY impressive and seem to keep growing. Thursday night at Fado’s has us at 411 people as of today, the Friday dinner banquet is at 473 and the Saturday Tailgate is at 840. We have the reunion shirts and caps in production and all the final plans are being put into place. As of today, I have a room at the Westin Hotel for Reunion weekend, access to a house in downtown Annapolis for the weekend (check out this link if you might be interested, a classmate reserved this on AirBNB and cannot use it: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2346962 ). I also have access to a few rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn, the Country Inn and Suites of Annapolis and the Marriott Springhill Suites. If you need a room PLEASE contact me as these rooms will have to be cancelled soon and turned back into the hotels.

Share this:

I hope September has started well and you are all enjoying the beginning of fall sports while enjoying some very nice late summer weather. Navy is off to a rousing 1-0 start and looks very well as they fired on all cylinders in the home opener. For those of you who attended or assisted at our home opener tailgate, thank you. For those of you missing the “drink trailer” and the large crowd, I can assure you we are looking at ways to enhance our class tailgate experience and will look at having special events at as many games as we can. I know this… The 30th Reunion Tailgate is about 800 strong and keeps growing every day. I am working with our vendors and caterer to make sure they are FULLY ready for our group and they have assured me they are up to the challenge. The same applies to all events as our numbers are EXCELLENT. The Thursday kickoff party approaching 400 and is now a USNA ’85 closed event at Fado’s featuring the draft beers from Classmate Dave Marquis and his Chesapeake Brewing Company. We are debuting his <strong>”Beat Army Golden Lager” </strong> and will raise a few dollars for veterans charities as well as kicking off our weekend with a few potential surprise guests. The Class Dinner is 450 attendees and growing with plenty of yummy food, drink and socializing all evening until they kick us out. (more…)

Share this:

First tailgate was a great success. Eric Bowman’s smoker was a hit. Plenty of food for all.

Plan for the East Carolina game on the 19th is coming together. Please note that everyone to bring enough drinks for themselves and a few extras for those who don’t. We ran out of water and it was hot! Had to drink beer instead. Update to be provided closer to the game on plans for food.

Stay tuned for pictures!

Share this:

YES!! Beat Army Golden Lager is the ’85 specialty being served at our reunion kickoff at Fado’s, dinner and tailgate. Stay tuned for more information on Beat Army Golden Lager brewed by our own David Marquis!

First up, here is a tee shirt that we will be on sale at the reunion to promote Beat Army Golden Lager being served at the Class Dinner and Tailgate. Get the shirt and then follow-up with the beer!

Share this:

Well many of you already know Rick Campbell but if you haven’t, the reunion is the time! Scuttlebutt is Rick will be holding a book signing all weekend at the Midstore. Bring your copies of his novels or purchase them there and get his John Hancock. Maybe some day they may be worth a lot of money (remember to donate those proceeds back to the class treasury!).

Seriously, you like Tom Clancy and haven’t read Rick’s novels yet, there’s no time like the present!

Share this:

Greetings and Happy Labor Day weekend. As we kick off the Fall Navy Football and Class of ’85 Tailgate season at NMCMS this weekend against Colgate at our Class Kickoff tailgate, the excitement starts and the tradition continues. You can see information about our class tailgate on the class website: <a href=”http://1985.usnaclasses.com”>http://1985.usnaclasses.com</a>. Enjoy a GREAT tailgate for those of you attending. Skip McDonnell and crew will have the tailgate buzzing and please remember to bring a side dish and BYOB for drinks as we kick off the “new area” of Old School Tailgaters.
>
Now let’s talk Reunion: We are officially in the IMPRESSIVE region for numbers of those attending; NICE WORK! Now, we still have some folks sitting on the sideline. Today is the final day to get your name printed on your reunion nametag as I must submit that list to my vendor for printing. We will have blanks and Sharpies so do not fret if you have to wait to commit. Today is also the cutoff for those of you who want to play golf in the Joint USNA ’85 and the USAFA Association of Graduates outing at Renditions Golf Course. A truly amazing outing and you can sign up today at: <a href=”http://golf.usafa.org/WashingtonDC”>http://golf.usafa.org/WashingtonDC</a>. If you have golf related questions, please email or call Danny Yurovich ’85: yurovich@msn.com or (717) 571-6260. For those you already signed up, you will need to drive yourself to the course or work with Dan on a carpool to the course. This is due to the early hour and the fact our golfers are too spread out to provide cost efficient bus transport. I have put that money into some fun gifts and prizes for the players.

For those of you who mentioned you needed babysitting and for those of you who need babysitting for the dinner on Friday, PLEASE contact me as I have babysitters and I have a conference room at the Westin Hotel we will turn into “Kids Paradise” on Friday evening with teenage daughters of fellow classmates staffing our room under the careful watch of hotel staff. I want to build my final list. We can plan babysitting to start at 1730 and lasting until 2200. Contact me about this if you need this service.

For those of you who have ordered our class apparel, I have received some VERY positive feedback. Thanks for ordering and I encourage the rest of you to get on our apparel site and do some shopping: <a href=”http://usna85.deco-apparel.com”>http://usna85.deco-apparel.com</a>. All our events continue to grow in number and scope. Encourage your classmates and company mates to get on board for this epic reunion. Volunteers for our registration desk are still being accepted, please contact me and I appreciate those of you who have stepped up to volunteer already and I will be assigning shift times soon starting Thursday at Noon and going until Friday at 1700. I have hired some full time staff to assist us at the Registration Desk as well. For our female Class of ’85 Classmates, Ashley Yetman and some others have organized a “Lady’s of ’85 Breakfast” at Preble Hall on Saturday Morning of the Reunion weekend at Preble Hall from 0900-1100. Please contact Ashley to join this group of female classmates reconnecting in honor of our 30th Reunion: aply@comcast.net
We have hired a photographer to be at our major events throughout the weekend and he will have a website to order downloadable prints or actual prints after the reunion weekend. We will do a special group shot at the Tailgate with a Drone (not a Raptor!); once again setting the standard for USNA Class Reunions. We have also obtained some graduation proofs and a video from the Library of Congress and will try and have individual prints from Graduation available through our photographer coming out of this
For those attending the Thursday Night party, we will be kicking off the first pints of the new: Beat Army Golden Lager and selling them for $4.85 per pint and raising money for Luke’s Flight Charity and Navy Athletics. We may have a few special guests (The Gorilla? Roger Staubach? Chesty Puller? Garcia himself?) to help roll this Beer out and we will be selling special Edition: Beat Army Golden Lager Apparel. This beer will be featured at other reunion events courtesy of Dave Marquis ’85 and his Chesapeake Brewing Company. For those of you in town Wednesday, we are announcing a “Pre-Pre kickoff” Happy Hour and Pub Crawl starting at Ramshead Tavern at 1700, if you happen to be in town or live there, come and join me and my host for that evening: Mike “Pig” Vance as we get the reunion rolling.

Okay ’85….. we are 26 days and counting to the Naval Academy’s GREATEST EVER Reunion and our 30th Reunion. Email, text or call with questions, comments or needs.

Regards and Go Navy, Beat the Colgate Raiders!

Bob Smith ’85

P.S. Steve Pimpo is still taking information for the Class Briefing notes at: sjpimpo@comcast.netWe are also looking for corporate partners to help us raise money for our Class of ’85 Charities. I am proud to announce Peter Martino ’85 and his business Annapolis Teas has recently joined us as a major sponsor.